black and white. In many ways Atlanta's
history of racial harmony can be traced as
much to interracial handshakes in the Com
merce Club and over breakfast at Paschal's
Motor Hotel as to any formal programs.
"There are strict rites of passage" in At
lanta, said James Crupi, president of a Dal
las firm that studies urban power structures.
"You must give of yourself voluntarily ....
You are tested by your involvement in civic
organizations. It takes time. Atlanta has a
sort of benevolent, patriarchal leadership,
the kind that looks after the city. That can
be traced to Robert Woodruff, the Coke
chairman .... [He] promoted the whole no
tion of giving some of yourself back to the
community. You're not in the Atlanta power
structure unless you do that. You don't get
there because you have dollars."
Society puts these good intentions to work.
"Atlanta has a black-tie ball every week
end," Martha Woodham, society columnist
for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,told
me. "The disease balls are big-the Heart
Ball is the biggest. The zoo just got accredit
ed, so its benefit was a huge success. Atlan
ta," she noted pointedly, "does not support
failures."
TLANTA CAN'T SEEM to make up its
mind about its past. "Oh, history's
like anything else here-the sym
phony, the art museum," one man
said airily. "If it's a good thing,
Atlanta wants to have it." So far, so good,
but Atlanta's past holds little charm for
Mayor Young. He brought in 16 billion
dollars in new business last year, with the
requisite new construction, and cheerfully
contends that "Atlanta is building its history
now. This is the golden age of development."
"They'd build a high rise on the bones of
Margaret Mitchell and Martin Luther
King," I heard someone say, "if they
thought they could make some money out of
it." No hyperbole; at this writing, the fate of
the house where Margaret Mitchell wrote
Gone With the Wind is under debate.
This is typical of the ongoing struggle
to draw sprawling Atlanta's attention back
to its center. Yet while John Portman has
been highly praised for his work in revital
izing downtown since the sixties with his
convention-oriented properties (Peachtree
Center, Westin Peachtree Plaza, Hyatt
Regency, and Marriott Marquis hotels),
even he is turning his gaze to the suburbs
and is now developing a town center near
Dunwoody.
Certainly there are neighborhoods-Grant
Park, Virginia-Highland, Inman Park, even
Cabbagetown-being revitalized by the
young and enthusiastic. But the official atti
tude is one of rather tense tolerance. Travel
authority and noted writer Arthur Frommer,
in a speech to the Atlanta Historical Society (a
group that, despite its name, has not been par
ticularly active in architectural preservation),
sounded a warning: "An increasing number
of conventioneers to this city . .. are reporting
that ... Atlanta itself is characterless and